Page 40 of Protector (Alpha Ties)

FORTY

ADDIE

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Anger so palpable it feels like a punch wells up from the depths of nothingness, yanking me from unconsciousness.

Confused, I crack my eyes half-open. Bright sunlight sears my retinas, and I squint with a pained groan.

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you take a goddamn scalpel to the side, you little asshole,” the furious voice snarls. Despite the anger, the large, warm hand that closes around mine is achingly gentle.

Carefully, I open my eyes again. Jacob is glaring down at me, the look of absolute murder in his green eyes only softened by a tinge of relief.

“Where—are we?” I croak.

“Where do you think? The fucking hospital, of course, where idiotic women who get in the way of knives are taken.” Scowling, he grabs a glass of water from my bedside and carefully supports my weight when I try to sit up enough to drink. A sharp stab of pain rips through my side.

Rumbling a slightly softer note, he tips the glass to my lips and allows the cool liquid to fill my parched mouth.

“You’ve been out for a day. The doctor said you were very lucky the blade only nicked your liver.” He helps me back down on the pillow and returns the water to the bedside table. “Half an inch to the right and you’d have bled out before getting on the operating table.”

I grimace as the all too vivid memory of feeling my flesh sliced open returns. “Did AX… Did Jack make it?”

Jacob narrows his eyes at me. “He did.”

“And Dr. Green?”

“Not so much.” There’s a lethal quality to his voice that makes a chill run up my spine. Not that I much care about my former colleague’s fate.

“You haven’t answered my question.” That promise of murder is still evident in Jacob’s voice—and eyes—as he stares down at me.

“Hm? What… What question?”

He bares his teeth at me, the alpha threat so visceral my heart gives a start. “What the fuck did you think was gonna happen, Addie? Letting yourself get fucking stabbed. Did you give even a second’s thought to what it was like for me to see my mate nearly die?”

Oh. I swallow, my throat tight despite the drink of water.

“What if he’d gotten that scalpel in half an inch to the right, huh? What if you’d died in my arms?” His nostrils pull up as he lays into me, and if he’d been any other alpha, I’d have been terrified. But I feel the undercurrent of blind panic just below the anger flowing freely through our bond. Even this furious, he would never, ever hurt me.

I look away from his burning green eyes, because I can’t bear to look into them when I whisper, “Then you would have been free.”

He inhales sharply, his angry voice snuffing for a long second. Then, with enough force to shake the windows, he roars, “Free? I would have been free? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Another harsh breath, and then he wraps his hand around my jaw to force me to look back up at him—and not entirely gently.

When our eyes meet, the agony on his strong features isn’t quite masked by his still-burning anger. “If you die, Adelaide, so do I. There is no breathing without you. There is nothing. You, of all people—you know what that feels like! And you tried to do that— to me.”

“You wouldn’t have died,” I whisper, the anguish twisting in our bond making it difficult to breathe. “You would have found someone else—claimed another mate. You could have… picked someone you could… love.”

Pure shock crosses over his face, widening his eyes and softening the fury etched there. For the longest time, he just stares at me. Then he straightens. I feel the loss of his warm fingers when he pulls his hand from my chin.

“It doesn’t work like that for alphas,” he says, voice soft, but not gentle. “There is no replacing our mate bond. There is no replacing you. And even if there was, I wouldn’t. Addie, you’re my Fated. There is only you, and there will only ever be you.”

My heart pounds so hard against my ribs it feels like it’s trying to escape. Everything in me aches to let his words soothe the raw pain of everything I’ve lost—to seek comfort in the fact that without my parents and my job, I still have a soft place to land. But this?

Rubbing my stinging eyes with the heels of my hands to keep my tears from spilling over, I shake my head. “I wish I could take it back. I wish I didn’t… I’m so, so sorry. I forced this bond on you, and you don’t deserve a lifetime of… of me. I… I just want you to be free. After everything I’ve done, you deserve to be free. If I can’t even give you that in death, then I don’t?—”

“Adelaide.” My name is harsh on his lips; an admonishment.

I shake my head again and press harder against my eyes, though I’ve long-since lost the battle against my tears. They roll down my cheeks, salty proof of my failure. There’s no fixing what I’ve done, and there never will be.

Strong arms wrap around my back, hoisting me into a seated position despite my groan of agony at the stabbing pain in my wound. Before I can clutch at my bandaged ribs, Jacob pulls me in tight, flattening my body against his. Warmth encompasses me from all sides—warmth and strength. And then, without ceremony, a deep, rich rumble fills the air.

I blink against his chest as the sound vibrates through my muscles and penetrates deep into my bones, loosening the ache in my heart. Everything feels light. Safe.

“You’re purring,” I mumble dazedly, too stunned by the realization to care that I’m stating the obvious.

Jacob’s only response is to nuzzle against the shell of my ear. Soon the sound of his unwavering purr drags my consciousness into blissful oblivion.

Time loses all meaning as I rest in my alpha’s embrace, but when his soothing rumble finally quiets, the light in my hospital room has softened to the golden-orange glow of sunset.

In the quietude that follows, my mind slowly returns to reality, but instead of anguish and sorrow, I feel relaxed. Like waking after a good night’s sleep.

He pecks the crown of my head and pulls back enough to let me peer up at him.

Green eyes meet mine, and my heart stutters in my chest at the expression in them. There is no judgement, no regret. Just tenderness—and an overwhelming warmth that heats me to the marrow of my bones. And finally, finally, it clicks.

Everything I’ve done, everything I am… the pain I’ve caused, the damage I’ve lived with for so many years… he can handle it. All of it. Because he is my Fated.

This man is my home.

Gently I raise a hand to skim my fingers over his jaw and up his cheekbone. His eyelids flutter closed at my touch, as if the simple grazing of our skin is an exquisite pleasure. Because it is. I feel the echo of it vibrate through our bond and sink deep into my heart.

“I think I love you,” I whisper, the words pulled from my lips before I even register their meaning. Horror follows on a rush of understanding. “Wait, no?—”

Jacob opens his eyes to give me a patient look. “If you wish to take it back until the thought of saying it no longer scares you half to death, you can.”

“I—” I stare up at him, mouth half agape as the clenching fear in my gut tightens harder—because him saying that only makes the disconcerting warmth in my heart spread farther. He knows every one of my flaws and weaknesses, understands them in a way even I struggle to comprehend… and he still looks at me as if I’m worth all the horrors I’ve put him through.

My mate leans down to plant a chaste kiss on my forehead. “I’ve waited this long for you, Addie. I can wait a little longer.”

Addie. The softness of my nickname washes over me, and I close my eyes and lean into his chest. The rhythmic sound of his beating heart makes my own slow, until the fear releases its hold and I’m once again reminded of how strong that muscle was in my hands. How certain I was that I would make this man live.

We stay silent for a little while, until a nagging thought at the back of my mind wiggles its way to the forefront.

Hesitantly, I glance up at Jacob. “Um. Do you…? Do you think you…? Not now, not yet, but one day…?”

He snorts, a humorless sound, but his eyes are soft when he says, “I think I’ve loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you. It’s just that you made it awfully difficult to distinguish from hate, those first few years.”

The heat in my face is not from embarrassment, but from shame. “Jacob, I’m… I can never make this right.”

“You can,” he says, firmness in his voice. “You will. I’ll make sure of it.”

It should sound like a threat, but it doesn’t. “You promise?”

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. It makes him look young, human—and impossibly even more handsome. “I do.”

I breathe with the bloom of hope slowly unfurling in my chest. If anyone can make me find redemption… it’s him. My mate. My alpha.

“So what happens now?” I ask, glancing at the darkening sky through the window. From my bed, I can’t see the state of the city beyond. “Did we… win?”

“We did. The others are overseeing the changing of the guard—making sure no one swoops in with a rogue claim on the Oval Office before elections can be held. Apart from that, well, that’s not my job to worry about.”

I bite my lip and steel myself for the next question. “And my father? Is he…? Did he die during the takeover?”

“He was captured,” Jacob says, his voice gentle. “But I think it’s a matter of when, not if, he’ll be tried and executed.”

I nod and look down, doing my best to fight back the sting of tears. “It’s what he deserves. I just…”

“Love him.”

I grimace what’s supposed to be a smile. “Can’t help who we love. You of all people know that, eh?”

He doesn’t laugh at my attempt at a joke—just holds me tighter.

“It’ll kill my mom,” I whisper into his chest.

“I know.”

I know he does. I press my face into his chest and allow the sound of his heart to soothe my sorrow. I’ll find a way to get through their deaths. I have to. For him.

“Simon, Dwayne, and Sean have been in touch with their families,” he says, likely to distract me from my morose thoughts. “They’ll be going back to them once the capital is stable enough, to live normal lives with the people they love. Whatever else you did, Addie, you made that possible. Every one of us would have been dead a long time ago without you.”

I breathe softly against his chest, inhaling his scent. “That’s something, I guess.”

“It’s more than something. It’s everything, mate.” He kisses my scalp.

“And you?” I ask when an unsettling thought pierces through. “You were listed as having no next of kin on the paperwork I saw, but I don’t know if my dad or Welsh omitted anything—” Christ, what if he has a family? What if he… what if he has a wife?

“There is no one. That’s seemingly one of the reasons Welsh sent me undercover. I had no one who would miss me, should things go wrong.” Jacob grabs me by the chin and tips my head up, capturing my gaze. “There is only you, Adelaide Thompson. You’re my family. My kin.”

This time, my blush is from something decidedly more warm and pleasant than shame.

“What about Jack?” I ask to distract myself from the flutter in my belly. “AX1—no one’s been able to figure out his identity. But Jack’s got… a sister, I think it was? She was listed as the beneficiary for his death gratuity payment.”

Jacob shrugs. “He said he had no one to return to. I didn’t ask—you were still in the operating room when he and Welsh came by.”

“Oh.” I shake my head, incapable of handling any more sadness. “We’ve gotta—there’s gotta be something we can do?”

The softest curve graces Jacob’s mouth. He wraps his warm hand around my jaw, cupping my cheek. “So much heart from a woman who spent her life pretending it away. He’s my brother, Addie. They all are. He won’t be alone.”

“And you?” I ask softly. “What do you want to do, now that you’re free?”

He hums as if he hasn’t given the idea any thought. After a moment, he says, “I’d like to take my mate into the mountains for a while. And learn who we are, away from all of this. If she’ll come, of course.”

“I’ll go anywhere you lead me,” I say. It’s my first step on the path to redemption—to let go of the reins and allow him to be my alpha, with all that entails. But it’s also true.

As I look up into his green, green eyes, I know I’ll follow this man for the rest of my life.